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situationism approach

26 letters of the alphabet and accompanying blog posts later, we have reached the end of our ABC’s of small business and conclude with letter Z for Zeitgeist. While the definition of zeitgeist is associated with the intellectual, cultural, and moral climate of an era, we’re using the word to describe the zeitgeist theory of leadership.

The zeitgeist theory of leadership stems from Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy who believed that leaders, and the characteristics that they exhibited, were products of social circumstances during a specific time, acting out to situations that are beyond their control. This theory clashed with the great man theory from Thomas Carlyle that discussed how leaders weren’t made, but born, having said characteristics from very early on that would lead them into positions of power.(more…)